Articles tagged “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests”

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Members will give Pope Francis recommendations on how to punish bishops who shield priests suspected of misconduct, one of several moves that are encouraging the two victims on the panel. But they also chided Francis for endorsing spanking.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) “Priority must not be given to any other kind of concern, whatever its nature, such as the desire to avoid scandal, since there is absolutely no place in ministry for those who abuse minors,” Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) “Obedience and closed environments also seem to have had a role in the prevalence of abuse within some religious orders and dioceses,” the report said. “Obligatory celibacy may also have contributed to abuse.”

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Cardinal George Pell said the church was no more responsible for cases of child abuse carried out by church figures than a trucking company would be if it employed a driver who molested women.

(RNS) The leading advocacy group for people who have suffered clergy sexual abuse is wrestling with how to respond to a flood of inquiries from victims from other faiths and institutions, and how to push for changes beyond the familiar precincts of the Catholic Church.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Asked why Pope Francis’ first meeting with abuse victims included no Americans, even though the U.S. scandal prompted worldwide attention, the Vatican’s chief spokesman said it was “not such an easy thing to organize an event like this.”

(RNS) Some victims of clergy sex abuse say Pope Francis’ first-ever encounter with victims is simply stagecraft aimed at distracting the public from what they say are the pope’s larger failures to address the abuse crisis.

ROME (RNS) The panel’s criticism was far more muted than a scathing February report from the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child that asserted that the Vatican had fostered “impunity” for abusers.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) “Any serious look around the world at what the Holy See is doing and what local churches are doing shows clearly that there is no climate of impunity but a total commitment to clean house,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican’s ambassador to U.N. agencies in Geneva sought to limit the Holy See’s legal responsibility for the abuse scandal, implying that the church’s jurisdiction did not extend to dioceses and churches around the world.